Gossip Queen
by ulfark
Summary: When everyone claims to know what you are, then you can either prove them wrong or just embrace it. Taylor tried to ignore their words until she literally couldn't anymore.


"Now split up into groups and research how the youth guard has protected Wards and be ready to argue whether they should have more or less power." Said Gladly

Taylor barely noticed Sparky and Gregg join her. The usual suspects were already neck deep into their discussion. Well, Gregg was word vomiting and Sparky grunted in response.

Normally she'd be excited at the real research they got to do instead of the superficial shit Gladly did to please the popular kids. Now all she could think about was the tingling sensation on her skin and the stomach ache that was burning a second hole in her stomach.

Scion why?

Why dammit?

She couldn't figure it out. She felt fine when she walked into the school but as soon as she spotted the bitches and they started their routine she felt like she was bathed in pure fear intermingled with nausea. At first she thought she had PTSD from the locker but she only felt mild revulsion when looking at the damn things.

Gregg finally turned to her "Taylor, you alright? You're shaking and soaked through"

She shifted and noticed her blouse sticking to her skin. Fuck when did that happen? She blinked and tried to find the words to respond. Fuck, why couldn't she concentrate?

"Gladly, I think Taylor is sick!" Gregg shouted

She was half tempted to shut him up but this felt serious enough that she might have to go back to the hospital. Gladly quickly walked over and examined her for a moment.

"Did you eat or do something unusual?" he asked in an uncertain tone

Food poisoning? no that didn't explain everything. "No"

He shifted his weight back and forth and glanced at the class "Can you follow me outside? We'd best discuss this in the hallway"

"Why?" She asked suspiciously. She was always covered in more shit after one of these little chats with the faculty than before. She wasn't keen on another shower when she already felt like puking.

Emma snorted "Cuz you're jonesing so bad for another hit that he's worried you'll offer Paul a blowjob right here in class."

"Fuck you. I don't sell drugs" Paul protested, but nobody was shocked at the allegation nor did he seem that worked up trying to defend himself.

Taylor suddenly felt even worse. Fuck. She barely even registered Emma's insult but suddenly she was projectile hurling all over Gladly' pointy leather shoes.

She ignored Gladly' restrained cursing and the riotous laughter around her. She had to think why did she suddenly feel worse? What was the trigger?

She kept thinking about it as she was frog marched into principal Blackwell's office. In his anger Gladly hadn't even made a pit stop at the bathrooms causing him to smear vomit stains all over her floor.

Taylor felt vindictive pleasure at the sight of her eyes crinkling in annoyance. Gladly spent a full five minutes tiptoeing around what happened in his class but Blackwell had no problems calling her a junkie.

"From lies to drugs. Somehow i'm not surprised, denying reality and making up your own little fantasy world seems to be your speciality miss Hebert."

She opened her mouth to protest but felt something rising up from within and quickly shut it. Afterwards she regretted not vomiting over Blackwell's desk and cursed her good manners.

"You're suspended for five weeks and on probation. One more misstep and you'll be expelled. I'll call your father to come pick you up"

She wondered how Sparky was still in school if this was their drug policy. No doubt, Blackwell was bending the rules to finally get rid of her.

She zoned out as Blackwell kept leveling accusations and thinly veiled insults and implications at her. She felt like death warmed over. She was feeling worse by the minute and she wanted to call 911 but couldn't string together a sentence to save her life.

Fuck, that might not be hyperbole here. Shit!

Her father burst through the door glaring at everyone in the room. His eyes only softened when he looked at her and she suddenly believed he had gained powers. His gaze healed sores she didn't know she had. She still felt like crap but it was nowhere near as bad as before.

After a short but tense shouting match Danny had thrown her over his shoulder before running out the room. "I don't care what it takes but if my girl was poisoned while you sat back and watched i'll sue you so hard that your grandchildren will be paying off your debts!" he shouted over his shoulder

He was a bit rough in getting her in his pick up truck and he was even rougher on his tires as he squealed out of the parking lot. Luckily though it was the middle of the day and there wasn't much traffic on the road. Danny ran three red lights when there wasn't anything in sight.

So of course a cop turned on a siren and tried pull to them over. Emphasis on tried since Danny blatantly ignored him and kept gunning his engine as he raced to the hospital.

Repeated warnings came over the loudspeaker and another cop car joined the pursuit.

This should have been awful. She knew that objectively she should feel fear and apprehension but instead she felt stronger.

Her nausea was clearing up and all kinds of ideas popped into her head. She was suddenly criticizing her dad's driving. Where he should have hit the brakes sooner or when he held them too long going into the corner. She didn't see a chaotic mess of traffic coming at her but the possible trajectories everything could take. She automatically filtered out anything that wasn't a threat and focused on optimizing her route despite her father's many mistakes.

What was going on? Did she suddenly get a thinker power?

"Dad… We should…" She didn't know how to finish. Pull over and risk her relapsing?

"Don't worry Taylor. I'll sort it out later. We're almost there" He swerved the car around to avoid a cop car ramming his rear end. He skidded over the sidewalk for what felt like a eternity before he got back on the road. Taylor was still anxiously checking he hadn't hit anyone when he shouted "We're here" causing Taylor to snap her head around to see the Hospital sign dominating the skyline up ahead.

A cop car moved in front of the entrance to blockade us, forcing Danny to dive into the bushes. Taylor heard the pick-up groan and squeal as Danny bulldozed his way right up to the front entrance of the hospital while ignoring the parking lot harder than Emma's stalkers ignored her personality.

He opened his door and quickly ran around the car while cop cars were pulling up all around them. Her power immediately showed her nine different escape routes with half of them packed with stunts worthy of a B rated movie.

"Freeze and put your hands above your head. We will open fire if you resist"

The threat suddenly made reality crash back into Taylor. She couldn't lollygag at her new power. She had to explain the situation and calm her dad. He was panicking and not thinking straight.

She opened her mouth but before she could say something she was hurled over his shoulder again and she could only let out a grunt.

As she emerged from the truck she was hit by an almost visible wall of pain. She started coughing like she had a bad itch in the back of her throat for half a minute before she started coughing up blood.

Her eyes widened what the fuck?

Danny bull-rushed into the hospital and screamed for attention. The attendants, nurses and patients all turned to look at her.

She projectile vomited again but this time it was blood. Scion help me. Her vomit had travelled beyond her dad's shoulder but somehow it was now also soaked through. She touched her chest and her hand came away bloody.

Fuck the hospital, she needed Panacea.

A few attendants and nurses came running with a hospital bed while others screamed in the background. Taylor didn't hear it, everything was fuzzy. She blacked out.

* * *

Amy felt guilty at the sheer joy she was feeling. Every normal person would be disgusted if they could hear her thoughts but she couldn't help it. it was the most interesting case she had since she debuted as a cape. She had healed the girl in seconds like any other case but when she was doing some double checking to make sure everything was all right, new injuries emerged out of nowhere.

She'd narrated what happened like she usually did and then all of a sudden the girl's body felt like a derailed train. Cancer, heart attack, massive hemorrhaging, to stomach ulcers. Every disease she could name off the top of her head this girl had at least three times by now.

It had only been two minutes since she had started healing her. She broke out of her reverie at seeing the new bio tinker poison and shouted "Quarantine the entire hospital. This is a tinker disease and it's incredibly lethal! It keeps spawning every type of disease imaginable. Get the CDC here and get blood samples. I'm activating the Bonesaw protocol."

Amy blinked in surprise as the spawning rate suddenly spiked. She instinctively reached out for her fat cells before she noticed that she was practically a bag of bones. "Get me a tub of lard and meat. I'm running out of material here. Raid the cafeteria if you have to!"

A middle aged man ran out the door as if Hookwolf was after him before he was tackled down by the staff. He shouted something but she ignored the civilian and focused on finding the source. She had to make sure it wasn't airborne before anything else.

* * *

Alarms were blaring in the background as Armsmaster rushed into the meeting room. The rest of his team had already gathered while he was checking the latest results.

"Armsmaster report!" Piggot barked before he was even seated

Armsmaster absentmindedly noted his lie detector detecting extremely high amounts of stress and fear in Piggot's expression before he began speaking "The disease doesn't seem airborne or even transmissible so far but it could have a long incubation period. Anything known about this disease is tentative and speculative at best until the CDC can run deeper tests." His eyes scrawled over the latest feeds that Dragon sent him "It seems to be rapidly mutating as it defies everything known about how diseases work. The most promising so far seems to be environmental as her vitals and number of spawned diseases improved when she was transferred but this was only temporary"

A heavy silence hung in the air. The case was horrifying but everyone's mind was on the creator.

Piggot's fingertips turned white as she asked "Was it Bonesaw?"

Armsmaster mulled his answer over for a second "Unclear. Based on past incidents, her MO is large scale terror tactics or up close and personal where she can see her work. This feels like an assassination attempt except the victim is a nobody. Unless the Hebert girl is a greeting to Panacea it doesn't fit her style. Also the quality of work far surpasses anything on Bonesaw's record. It seems more likely that it's the work of a new bio tinker that specializes in diseases than her improving to such a drastic extent."

Assault let out a sigh of relief "So no super enthusiastic evil LARPers that just bought the Brockton edition?"

Piggot ignored him and the kick he got under the table. "The public has already found out about this and are unsurprisingly panicking. People are both rioting and fleeing the city. The first is bad but the second is catastrophic if this disease is transmittable and Hebert is patient Zero." She paused for a moment and took a deep breath "This is a S class emergency and i've already called in help. Chief director Costa brown has assigned Eidolon to Brockton to manage the crowds."

She took another deep breath before she grunted out "Brockton City has officially been quarantined and depending on how the Hebert case pans out we may even be walled in."

Dauntless gasped "As in Simurgh hit cities?"

Piggot nodded "Hebert's disease is potentially worse. If it spreads easily and people flee all over America trying to escape the Nine, infecting people left and right" Piggot paused as she envisaged it and grimaced "The whole country will split up into small xenophobic tribes fighting over the most valuable resource AKA the girl that can keep them alive. Our only hope would be for people to die before they can spread it further and in our hyper connected world that means hundreds of millions have to die and that's only if it is contained to the US."

Assault mumbled "Great, we just have to outdo Hitler." The whole room looked uncomfortable with the idea of preventative genocide but Miss militia seemed to pale the most as her perfect memory assisted her imagination.

Armsmaster cleared his throat "i'd like to inform the room of a theory that's been floated by some at the CDC. Panacea has confirmed a corona pollentia inside Hebert's brain causing them to believe that perhaps she was infected by her own creation."

"You think she created the tinker disease?" Piggot asked sharply

Armsmaster shrugged "I don't know, Some even think that she has a shaker power but because the Manton effect is geared towards affecting humans she is also affected. There have been cases in the past where capes were harmed or even killed by their own powers."

Piggot remained silent for a moment "Hebert gets a 9+ rating, Evacuation takes priority should she turn violent. Whether it's for a shaker or a tinker power does not matter. No one is allowed to take her down alone or without hazmat suits."

Miss Militia winced "isn't that a bit harsh"

"She's a walking biohazard that's a death sentence to anyone except Panacea."

"That hasn't been confirmed yet. it's only a theory." cautioned Armsmaster

Piggot grunted "Off course, but we must stay vigilant. Update her file with this. We need to take precautionary measures. Dragon can you build a more secure facility to contain her?"

"I think so, but i will need a few days to get it to Brockton"

"That's fine"

* * *

**author note**

So can you guess what Taylor's power is?

I don't expect this to go anywhere. I love the worm fandom but i still have not read the Web serial.

I got dragged in when i read a great crossover and then i fell in love with not knowing the canon storyline. It makes everything feel a lot more original when you never know what is supposed to happen. Sure, eventually you learn that Lung, Bakuda and Leviathan are the main fights like Raditz, Vegeta and Frieza are for DBZ but with the flexibility of the Worm magic system and the myriad of factions there are plenty of options.

I just wrote this cuz i got inspired.


End file.
